


Snapshots

by WingedSerpentofSnow



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Gen, Just angsty headcannons lol, S P O I L E R S, So I made it myself, The movie was long as hell, Written at 5:30 am, but I still didn't get some emotional stuff I wanted, drabble style
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedSerpentofSnow/pseuds/WingedSerpentofSnow
Summary: Snapshots of various heroes during and after the end of Avengers: Endgame.Will add more as/if things occur to me.(S P O I L E R S!!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Drabbles written at 5:30 in the morning after I saw endgame yesterday. Enjoy! And if you want to chat Endgame with me, I am r e a d y

\-----Peter and Tony-----

The kid's babbling, something about Strange's sparking hands, a mixture of panic and excitement sending his mouth running a million miles a minute, but Tony can barely hear him over the pounding of his heart, a tattoo that screams "Alive, alive, he's  _ alive _ ."

Mr. Stark is barely breathing, Friday's saying something about his condition being critical and Mrs. Potts (Oh, Mrs. Stark, probably) is telling him he can rest, but Peter can barely hear them over the pounding of his heart, a tattoo that shrieks, "Dying, dying, he's  _ dying _ ."

\-----Nebula and Gamora-----

Nebula looks into cold, hard eyes. This is a Gamora she recognizes, a Gamora who runs hot as always, but whose heart has chilled to save her soul. This is a Gamora not yet thawed by the love of her fellow Guardians, a Gamora wilted and frigid without love, a Gamora who covers her green skin in the blood of her father's enemies and laughs in their faces as she breaks inside. This is a Gamora she recognizes, but not the Gamora she knows. So yes, she takes her hand.

But this is not her sister.

Gamora looks into pitch black eyes, and for the first time in a long time, maybe forever, she doesn't think of her sister as a mindless machine, as a robot of rhetoric and routine, as the failure that grovels weakly at their father's feet for her many mistakes. She looks into those eyes that can barely meet hers and of course she sees the rage she expects, the devotion as well, though not to their father. But too, she sees guilt, she sees pain, she sees what might be love. But she is not this Nebula's Gamora. And as she sees a tear streak down blue skin, as light fades from black eyes, she looks into a pair exactly the same but entirely different, and knows.

This is not her sister.

\-----Bucky-----

Steve doesn't tell Bucky that he didn't save him in that other timeline he lived. But then, Bucky already knows him too well. He knew that Steve wasn't coming back, knew where he was going and where he would stay. Somehow it still hurts though, that Steve left him, that Steve went where he couldn't follow. With him till the end of the line, sure. The end of Steve's line, the end of his rope. Bucky can't begrudge him is happiness, not even now. But as he stands here, looking at the back of the head of an old, old man, watches Steve gift Sam with his shield, well. Not holding a grudge doesn't mean it can't still hurt.

\-----Clint-----

She kicks off the wall, strong and steady, and he watches her fall, fall, fall. Land. Her hair is red, her blood is red, the blood seeps into her hair, the cold seeps into his heart. She'd not been living, he could see when she found him. It was in the tears of her eyes, it was in the rueful tilt of her mouth, it was in her slightly shaking hands that clutched desperately to the umbrella handle as she told him of hope. She'd looked so small to him then. She'd not been living, nor recovering, nor moving on, just surving. Just like him. She gave him hope. And now he watches red pool beneath her shattered skull, stares at her glazed eyes, and wants to follow her. Then he's kneeling in lukewarm water with a gold-orange stone in his fist, wondering if he'll ever be able to look at his family and not think, "She died for me, for this." He's known hope was just a pipe dream for children for almost as long as he's been alive, and it's never felt as much like it died than when he looked for his family and found ashes instead, but this is a goddamn  _ close _ second.

\-----Bruce-----

The memory of wielding the infinity gauntlet remains sharp, stinging like the burned flesh that covers his right arm. The arrogance he'd felt then, the  _ power _ , even as it'd brought him to his knees, had been intoxicating. For a moment, he knew he could do anything. Make anything. Be anything, anyone, anywhere, anywhen. And for  _ just a moment _ he'd thought the rage he'd tucked away deep inside would turn him into a greater threat than even Thanos--completely unexpected, a traitor. But he'd not fallen to his own hubris, he'd snapped and brought back those Thanos had vanished. But now, as he rubs a hand gently along his scalded flesh to soothe it, Tony's memorial floating downstream, Clint and Wanda mourning Natasha and Vision, Thor gone away to parts unknown again, he can't help but think back to that moment when he held the fate of the worlds in his fist and wonder if there was a better way.

\-----Thor-----

Steven Rogers can wield Mjolnir, which Thor isn't much surprised about. He’s more surprised that  _ he’s  _ still worthy, rather than the captain--a noble man who fought because it was right. What  _ does _ surprise him is the man's ability to wield the storm as well, because that? Well, that's his ability, his birthright. He wasn’t born with Mjolnir in hand, but his earliest memory is the surprise on his mother’s face as her hair puffed up from the little static he could produce. If Steve can wield Mjolnir, can wield his storm too, then well. What good is there to Thor? Thor, son of none, god of nothing special, brother of none, and, as he passes the role to Valkyrie, leader of none.

He fought, as his father would've wanted. He ruled the Asgardians as best he could, as his mother would've wanted. He bled and fell, as his sister would've wanted. He rose and won, as his brother would've demanded. And now, he follows Rocket onto the Guardian's ship and leaves, as is his due.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some headcanons and shitty lore

\-----Groot-----

  
Groot are creatures of many secrets.

For example, despite the fact that he pretends otherwise, Groot remembers his life from Before, from the time the Guardians never speak of unless they're ankle deep in alcohol. When he was strong, the protector rather than the protectee, when he was powerful enough to give their enemies pause. But that's not the him of now, will likely never be again, so he doesn't mention it. That Groot was sad, and solemn. That Groot had been living for nothing before he found Rocket (beaten and shredded and oh-so-angry , but not broken, never broken) and patched the small creature up, then followed him out of a mixture of curiosity and apathy. That Groot sacrificed himself for his companions and is _gone_ , and this Groot is left in his place, memories of a past life bouncing around in his mind, sometimes screaming so loudly that he has to cover his ears until they go away.

Another secret that Groot will never tell Rocket: he was aware during the five years of death. He remembers how it felt to fade away to less than ashes, how it felt for each individual piece of his bark to flake off and shiver into nothingness. He remembers the fear that he'd never see Rocket or the other guardians again, the familiar horror of failure and loneliness.

And he remembers feeling terror at the blank Nothing of death, emptier than space ever was, or ever could be. For him, there is nothing after life, not redemption or punishment or reward or even purgatory. Just a great, empty Nothing, vast and impenetrable and lonely.

He thinks he might've gone insane, in those 5 years. He can put on a facade for Rocket, but. Every time he closes his eyes, he feels the Nothing of that place.

And he fears it.

\-----Natasha-----

  
Natasha knew the moment that Red Skull gave them the ultimatum that she was going to die that day, because there was no way she'd let it be Clint. She whispers for him to let her go, gives him a little nod of reassurance, _kicks_  off the wall, and sees something die within him as she falls.

But that's not the end.

She can hear him cry, she can see him kneeling in water through a lense of orange, but. She can't reach him. She pounds against the barrier, she screams, she rages. She throws herself against that wall of orange again and again and again, but. She can't reach him. She'll never reach him.

The soul stone is called such for a reason, she now knows. And as she remains trapped within it, as she realizes she'll be trapped here for the rest of her existence until the stone plunders her soul's energy to nothing (there's no one else here but the tawdry remains of souls sucked dry, so others have been here before her, and others have reached that final death), she wonders. Who made the greater sacrifice; Clint, alive but once again broken, or She, trapped here until her soul bleeds dry?


End file.
